Agile PLM - The CIO's Guide to Oracle Products and Solutions - page 4

competitive markets. However, product life-cycle management (PLM)
should be distinguished from product life-cycle management (marketing)
(PLCM). PLM describes the engineering aspect of a product, from manag-
ing descriptions and properties of a product through its development and
useful life, whereas PLCM refers to the commercial management of the life
of a product in the business market with respect to costs and sales measures.
Product life-cycle management can be considered as one of the four cor-
nerstones of a manufacturing corporation's information technology (IT)
structure. All companies need to manage communications and informa-
tion with their customers (i.e., CRM, customer relationship management),
their suppliers and fulfillment (i.e., SCM, supply chain management), their
resources within the enterprise (i.e., ERP, enterprise resource planning),
and their product planning and development (PLM).
One form of PLM is called people-centric PLM. While traditional PLM
tools have been deployed only upon release or during the release phase,
people-centric PLM targets the design phase. The benefits of people-cen-
tric PLM include:
• Reduced time to market
• Increase in full-price sales
• Improved product quality and reliability
• Reduced prototyping costs
• More accurate and timely requests for quote generation
• Ability to quickly identify potential sales opportunities and rev-
enue contributions
• Savings through the reuse of original data
• A framework for product optimization
• Reduced waste
• Savings through the complete integration of engineering workflows
• Ability to provide contract manufacturers with access to a central-
ized product record
• Seasonal fluctuation management, with improved forecasting to
reduce material costs
• Maximized supply chain collaboration
Within PLM there are five primary areas:
1. Systems engineering (SE)
2. Product and portfolio management (PPM)